Quidditch should be made an Olympic Sport.
As we all know Harry Potter is the biggest story franchise of all time. However what you may not know is that the famous wizard sport is also fastly becoming a popular sport for muggles.
Come Rio 2016 it would be amazing to see such a new sport played in the Olympics. For those of you who are a little unsure on what the sport entails here’s a quick rundown.
Quidditch
Quidditch is the sport created by J.K Rowling for the Harry Potter Series.
It involves a fascinating element of magic, skill and broomsticks. The game has a number of objectives depending upon the position you play, however as with most sport the main goal is to score more points than the other team.
Each team consist of 7 players:
- 1 Keeper
- 3 Chasers
- 2 Beaters
- 1 Seeker
And 3 type of ball
- 1 Quaffle
- 2 Bludgers
- 1 Golden Snitch
The Quaffle is a spherical shaped ball, similar in size to a football, with 4 large dimples in it. It is the job of each teams chasers to move up and down the pitch trying to score points by placing the Quaffle through one of the opponents 3 rings which are defended by the teams keeper.
The bludgers are hard iron balls similar to cannon balls that roam around the pitch attempting to mame, damage or injure any players they come across. The beaters on a team are armed with short wooden bats and it’s their job to defend their team from the bludgers.
At 150pts the Golden Snitch is the most valuable ball on the field. It’s quick and very fast and it’s down to the seeker to try and catch this ball. When a seeker manages to catch the snitch they will win the 150pts for their team. A game of Quidditch does not finish until the snitch has been caught.
Muggle Quidditch
In 2005 at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont the game of Quidditch was adapted so that non-magic folk such as you or I could play this fascinating game.
As we have no magical abilities the game is played on the ground with an extra player taking on the role of the Golden Snitch and dodge balls thrown from the sidelines act as bludgers.
The sport had its first World Cup in 2007 and over 100 college and high school teams competed in the competition. More can be read about The Quidditch World Cup here.
Quidditch In The Olympics
So here is the crux of this article – I’d like to support the growing petition for Quidditch (the Muggle version) to be entered into the prestigious category of Olympic Sport.
There are over 450 million Harry Potter books sold, but on top of that the Guardian estimates that there is about 700 Quidditch teams worldwide.
The Quidditch Olympics was held this year in Oxford, England and was won by The USA. The Leaky Cauldron report on the event here
